Checking the seven-day weather forecast (or meteo) for Paris my wife, Grace, discovered that we were in for a -1 degree celsius temperature around Saturday. We realized that winter is coming, especially this evening when we found ourselves chilled enroute from a very last-minute grocery shopping at FranPrix in Le Marais. When we exited the grocery a desperate, and obviously hungry old beggar (who spoke in a strange language of plea) tapped Grace on the shoulder which prompted us to break into a faster trot. It was the first time a mendicant had approached us that close, and with an insistence that he even followed us to the corner of rue Saint-Antoine. Grace expressed how she disliked Le Marais in St. Paul because of the way the homeless had encamped in the passageways and alleys and also because they looked more and more dangerous as the weather became unbearably colder.
But compassion was nevertheless yanked from our wary minds when we saw an old woman in bundled clothing had prepared her bedding of cardboard boxes and old clothes along the corridors of the building of Cité des Arts. If we were freezing, how much unbelievably colder weather will the homeless endure...outdoors at night? (I saw a beggar at Bir Hakeim station showing off his frost-bitten and toe-less feet) Perhaps this is the reason, I said, why the old man had pleaded so desperately: these nights are a terror for those without shelter or food. Yet, unfortunately I said we cannot indulge our compassion needlessly. Marguerite had informed me that the government is taking some steps in aiding the homeless, who are generally part of the thousands of Roman (Romanian) families, to return to their hometowns but they keep on coming back to Paris, and its troves of tourists. I am sure, based on experience in "helping" that even a single act of "mercy" will cause them to hurl at you and demand for more, and with increasing frequency bordering on some form of extortion. Besides, we are from a relatively poor country, what moral right do we have to give alms here when we cannot help the poor in our hometown or neighborhood? But the issue is very thorny and I do not have the right answers, nor the moral ascendancy to do so.
They call it the Disneyland effect, when tourists come to Paris as if it was a theme park cordoned off for our amusement. To be frank, I fell for this illusion on my first few days. But this was immediately dispelled when I saw vagrants and the homeless camping right next to the door of Cité de Arts, complete with their luggage and backpacks - like perpetual hikers and wanderers of the world. Today I saw a Chinese artist sketching a beggar near Jardin de Luxembourg. How crazy it seemed, that the elderly Asian artist accurately captured the dismal form of the penniless, from the heated comfort of a café while his subject shuddered under a tree, sitting on the pavement.
But its not the mendicants who deliver to me the most truth versus the fallacy of the Disneyland effect. This distinction belongs to other groups of street persons: the hustlers and scammers, the turnstile jumpers and the outright thieves.
Those who have given me ample advice about life in Paris for my three month sojourn mentioned in strong empathic tones of the proficiency of pickpockets and hustlers in Paris. On my first day alone, while admiring the sculptures of Maillol at the Jardin de Carousel, I was hounded by girls with petition papers asking for my signature for some vague UNICEF project. When I asked what the project was (they feigned to know English) they just pointed the figure of 20€ as donation. I told them I cannot help them because it seemed unrealistic that UNICEF would hire quite young children to solicit funds from the street. They broke into this medley of gibberish and I reached for my coat pocket to make sure they could not pilfer anything as I strode to the nearest roving police officer. At the sight of the blue-uniformed policeman, they suspiciously disappeared. This happened again while I was in front of Hotel de Ville and a burly man bothered me while I was inspecting a figure of a sculpture that he needed some change for 10€ to give as alms for a charity. He presented a publication to me and said it was "for bebe, for bebe". When I said I didnt have money on me, he said "money for bebe, for bebe" and I saw in his eyes the excitement of a hunter aimed at his prey and told him he was annoying me and I will call the police if he doesn't get out of my face. When a companion came close I warned him as well that I will point them out as thieves and both went away muttering.
That was the only day I hated Paris. But I was not alone. Marguerite had her phone stolen by a Romanian boy who pretended to be mute and shoved a petition paper to her face while he pocketed her smartphone that lay on the bistrot table.
But as the days went by I discovered more schemers and hustlers.
Near the Louvre, and at Pont Neuf I've noticed four men stooping to pick up the same sized rings within the span of 15 minutes and asked several couples if they lost their bands. Obviously, a scam.
At the foot of Butte Montmartre Ive seen some tourists' hands being tied up with colored strings by fellows who loudly claim "no buy, I am friend". But the same line was being repeated by the other men at different levels of the steps so it must be nothing but another scam. Same with the three-way monte card games played near the Eiffel, or the vicinities of Moulin Rouge: all forms of cheating and diversionary tactics for pickpocketing.
Where are the police?
Well, one afternoon at the Trocadero I witnessed a policeman lunge at an illegal ambulant vendor of Eiffel Tower trinkets and both wrestled on the marble floor while the others scampered away, but just barely. The vendor slipped out of the policeman's grasp and away he went to his band of friends and fled. The policeman picked himself up, spoke to his partner and left smiling. Ten minutes later the vendors were back and even sold some of their goods to the same gullible tourists who had witnessed the fracas!
But that was it. Of all my weeks spent in Paris, I saw only one intervention vis-a-vis the daily dose of being pestered by petition papers, trinket sellers, friendship band makers, ring bearers, Metro kangaroos (how they can jump that high across the turnstile was so fascinating) and residents of telephone booths and building corridors.
I thought that by going out of the metropolis that I would be spared of meeting these characters. But there they were even in tiny Lisieux, with cups in their hands and brawny shoulders asking for alms at the gates of the Basilique, the Carmel, and in the narrow streets of Rouen. With these men my wife and I are incensed: they are obviously burly enough to work!
But when Ive read articles about this phenomena, I discovered that not many opportunities are available to non-local migrants despite that some (like the Roman) are European citizens. The previous administration under Sarkozy had a policy of repatriation but these hardy men and women are holding out until that policy ends in 2013. Meanwhile the tourist forums and travel blogs are choked with complaints of being accosted by the police by stepping on the grass even as they protest as being targeted by thieves and scammers.
I believe I will witness more of these as the weeks roll into December and Christmas. Back home I can imagine that our own version of the dispossessed roam the streets for alms, or sing weird Christmas tunes in a dialect in the narrow aisles of jeepneys, or huddle in parks, plazas to share their gleanings with the rest of their group.
But that sight, I am used to. What bewilders me is the spectacle of a bearded man in his late years, dressed in a passably clean white coat, lying down in a bed of cartons and Sycamore leaves, reading a book, in the well lighted passageway of a closed magasin. For a Filipino who was raised to see his gods and saints as white men, I cannot help but feel depressed.
Paris may have its own Disneyland, but certainly it is not a theme park.
It is an urban city, a living, constantly changing and certainly self-contradicting metropolis catering to all range of races, classes and types of human beings. How many people who live here can truly call it home, without walls around them? How many people can claim to have seen Paris without being seen in return? How many people can traverse its streets, think of midnights and magic and romance films, while clutching to their wallets and phones with uneasy vigilance? How many can, indeed, go back to their countries and show their dumbfounded neighbors and friends of the picturesque beauty of Paris while trying hard to frame out those who linger at the periphery, the margins?
I will certainly not make a pretty frame when I get back. It is impossible.
But compassion was nevertheless yanked from our wary minds when we saw an old woman in bundled clothing had prepared her bedding of cardboard boxes and old clothes along the corridors of the building of Cité des Arts. If we were freezing, how much unbelievably colder weather will the homeless endure...outdoors at night? (I saw a beggar at Bir Hakeim station showing off his frost-bitten and toe-less feet) Perhaps this is the reason, I said, why the old man had pleaded so desperately: these nights are a terror for those without shelter or food. Yet, unfortunately I said we cannot indulge our compassion needlessly. Marguerite had informed me that the government is taking some steps in aiding the homeless, who are generally part of the thousands of Roman (Romanian) families, to return to their hometowns but they keep on coming back to Paris, and its troves of tourists. I am sure, based on experience in "helping" that even a single act of "mercy" will cause them to hurl at you and demand for more, and with increasing frequency bordering on some form of extortion. Besides, we are from a relatively poor country, what moral right do we have to give alms here when we cannot help the poor in our hometown or neighborhood? But the issue is very thorny and I do not have the right answers, nor the moral ascendancy to do so.
They call it the Disneyland effect, when tourists come to Paris as if it was a theme park cordoned off for our amusement. To be frank, I fell for this illusion on my first few days. But this was immediately dispelled when I saw vagrants and the homeless camping right next to the door of Cité de Arts, complete with their luggage and backpacks - like perpetual hikers and wanderers of the world. Today I saw a Chinese artist sketching a beggar near Jardin de Luxembourg. How crazy it seemed, that the elderly Asian artist accurately captured the dismal form of the penniless, from the heated comfort of a café while his subject shuddered under a tree, sitting on the pavement.
But its not the mendicants who deliver to me the most truth versus the fallacy of the Disneyland effect. This distinction belongs to other groups of street persons: the hustlers and scammers, the turnstile jumpers and the outright thieves.
Those who have given me ample advice about life in Paris for my three month sojourn mentioned in strong empathic tones of the proficiency of pickpockets and hustlers in Paris. On my first day alone, while admiring the sculptures of Maillol at the Jardin de Carousel, I was hounded by girls with petition papers asking for my signature for some vague UNICEF project. When I asked what the project was (they feigned to know English) they just pointed the figure of 20€ as donation. I told them I cannot help them because it seemed unrealistic that UNICEF would hire quite young children to solicit funds from the street. They broke into this medley of gibberish and I reached for my coat pocket to make sure they could not pilfer anything as I strode to the nearest roving police officer. At the sight of the blue-uniformed policeman, they suspiciously disappeared. This happened again while I was in front of Hotel de Ville and a burly man bothered me while I was inspecting a figure of a sculpture that he needed some change for 10€ to give as alms for a charity. He presented a publication to me and said it was "for bebe, for bebe". When I said I didnt have money on me, he said "money for bebe, for bebe" and I saw in his eyes the excitement of a hunter aimed at his prey and told him he was annoying me and I will call the police if he doesn't get out of my face. When a companion came close I warned him as well that I will point them out as thieves and both went away muttering.
That was the only day I hated Paris. But I was not alone. Marguerite had her phone stolen by a Romanian boy who pretended to be mute and shoved a petition paper to her face while he pocketed her smartphone that lay on the bistrot table.
But as the days went by I discovered more schemers and hustlers.
Near the Louvre, and at Pont Neuf I've noticed four men stooping to pick up the same sized rings within the span of 15 minutes and asked several couples if they lost their bands. Obviously, a scam.
At the foot of Butte Montmartre Ive seen some tourists' hands being tied up with colored strings by fellows who loudly claim "no buy, I am friend". But the same line was being repeated by the other men at different levels of the steps so it must be nothing but another scam. Same with the three-way monte card games played near the Eiffel, or the vicinities of Moulin Rouge: all forms of cheating and diversionary tactics for pickpocketing.
Where are the police?
Well, one afternoon at the Trocadero I witnessed a policeman lunge at an illegal ambulant vendor of Eiffel Tower trinkets and both wrestled on the marble floor while the others scampered away, but just barely. The vendor slipped out of the policeman's grasp and away he went to his band of friends and fled. The policeman picked himself up, spoke to his partner and left smiling. Ten minutes later the vendors were back and even sold some of their goods to the same gullible tourists who had witnessed the fracas!
But that was it. Of all my weeks spent in Paris, I saw only one intervention vis-a-vis the daily dose of being pestered by petition papers, trinket sellers, friendship band makers, ring bearers, Metro kangaroos (how they can jump that high across the turnstile was so fascinating) and residents of telephone booths and building corridors.
I thought that by going out of the metropolis that I would be spared of meeting these characters. But there they were even in tiny Lisieux, with cups in their hands and brawny shoulders asking for alms at the gates of the Basilique, the Carmel, and in the narrow streets of Rouen. With these men my wife and I are incensed: they are obviously burly enough to work!
But when Ive read articles about this phenomena, I discovered that not many opportunities are available to non-local migrants despite that some (like the Roman) are European citizens. The previous administration under Sarkozy had a policy of repatriation but these hardy men and women are holding out until that policy ends in 2013. Meanwhile the tourist forums and travel blogs are choked with complaints of being accosted by the police by stepping on the grass even as they protest as being targeted by thieves and scammers.
I believe I will witness more of these as the weeks roll into December and Christmas. Back home I can imagine that our own version of the dispossessed roam the streets for alms, or sing weird Christmas tunes in a dialect in the narrow aisles of jeepneys, or huddle in parks, plazas to share their gleanings with the rest of their group.
But that sight, I am used to. What bewilders me is the spectacle of a bearded man in his late years, dressed in a passably clean white coat, lying down in a bed of cartons and Sycamore leaves, reading a book, in the well lighted passageway of a closed magasin. For a Filipino who was raised to see his gods and saints as white men, I cannot help but feel depressed.
Paris may have its own Disneyland, but certainly it is not a theme park.
It is an urban city, a living, constantly changing and certainly self-contradicting metropolis catering to all range of races, classes and types of human beings. How many people who live here can truly call it home, without walls around them? How many people can claim to have seen Paris without being seen in return? How many people can traverse its streets, think of midnights and magic and romance films, while clutching to their wallets and phones with uneasy vigilance? How many can, indeed, go back to their countries and show their dumbfounded neighbors and friends of the picturesque beauty of Paris while trying hard to frame out those who linger at the periphery, the margins?
I will certainly not make a pretty frame when I get back. It is impossible.
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